BJORN STAERK WRITES:

Nowadays I’m focusing on the deeper, more fundamental conflict: American entrepreneurship vs. the European social welfare state. I think that is the root conflict that causes such a disparity of opinion between the US and Europe.

And, I think, Europeans feel threatened by the American model, especially as that model is the root cause for American wealth and power, and the European model has not been able to keep up.

Yep. Europe is governed by the New Class, and America’s model ensures that the New Class will always be comparatively marginalized.

THIS RARE FISKING BY JEFF JARVIS proves that the genre is alive and well, and that Jarvis saves his efforts for only the most idiotic of targets.

IS THE LATEST VIDEO BY “SYSTEM OF A DOWN” being blacklisted — or is the war just popular? I link, you decide.

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Heller offers an alternative theory:

Since I was up very late last night I can tell you that adult MTV (VH1) played Boom! by System of a Down last night between 2 and 3 am I’d estimate.

I think the reason it’s not getting play is because the song sucks, it was released on an album of throwaways and the video’s concept is passe/not original.

I am/was a huge fan of System’s prior albums — especially Toxicity which was the only album I listened to for months after 9/11.

Well, there’s always that. I actually kind of liked Toxicity. I don’t have it, but my brother does.

I DON’T BUY THE SARS-AS-BIOWEAPON CLAIM, but Bigwig makes the best case I’ve seen that it is, or will be, one.

THEY’RE CHANGING TACTICS, BUT IT’S TOO LATE: They’ve already lost the initiative in this war.

My column on the TV networks vs. the blogosphere, and why the “embedding” program was a stroke of genius by the Pentagon, is up early over at TechCentralStation.

UPDATE: They’re getting desperate: “Arnett, Rivera first in wave of suicide broadcasters.” Heh.

DE GENOVA UPDATE: Daniel Drezner has a lot more information about the Columbia University anti-war “teach in” where Prof. Nicholas De Genova called for an American defeat, and a “million Mogadishus.”

Though the other speakers weren’t in De Genova’s league, Drezner notes that we shouldn’t lose sight of what the self-described “mainstream anti-war” folks are saying, either.

All told, it’s a disgrace. But — in a way that Columbia isn’t likely to appreciate — it’s certainly educational.

UPDATE: Here’s a statement by Columbia President Lee Bollinger on De Genova’s remarks.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s a post, apparently by De Genova’s college roommate.

WHAT’S REALLY AMAZING IS THAT THIS STORY IS FROM REUTERS:

SHATRA, Iraq (Reuters) – Hundreds of Iraqis shouting “Welcome to Iraq” greeted Marines who entered the town of Shatra Monday after storming it with planes, tanks and helicopter gunships.

A foot patrol picked its way through the small southern town, 20 miles north of the city of Nassiriya, after being beckoned in by a crowd of people.

“There’s no problem here. We are happy to see Americans,” one young man shouted.

It’s especially impressive when you note this Arab News report:

“There are people from Baath here reporting everything that goes on. There are cameras here recording our faces. If the Americans were to withdraw and everything were to return to the way it was before, we want to make sure that we survive the massacre that would follow as Baath go house to house killing anyone who voiced opposition to Saddam. In public, we always pledge our allegiance to Saddam, but in our hearts we feel something else.”

Different versions of that very quote, but with a common theme, I would come to hear several times over the next three days I spent in Iraq.

And the really big story, of course, is that you’re seeing stuff like this reported by Reuters and the Arab News. Bad news for Saddam in the propaganda war — if you can’t count on these guys, who can you count on? Peter Arnett?

UPDATE: Reader Michael Levy emails that people have their historical analogies wrong:

Some people compare this war to the Vietnam War (of course, they do that every time). But Iraq resembles Vietnam’s neighbor, Cambodia, at the height of the genocide. Even the Vietnamese regime was not so cruel–but if we had invaded Cambodia, we would have faced something similar to this.

Interesting.

THIS COULD BE A SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE SKIT: Arnold Kling imagines questions the press might ask at an Iraqi military briefing. Excerpt:

Your strategy of showing American prisoners and dead on TV, in order to destroy their will to fight does not seem to be working. Can you comment on reports suggesting that this has only made the American people angrier?

The government’s best hope for surviving this war is pressure from world opinion to stop the fighting. Can you explain how shooting civilians trying to flee Basra helps to mobilize world public opinion on our behalf?

Hmm. I wonder why Saddam isn’t standing in front of a bunch of reporters and answering questions like these? I guess it’s because (1) he’s dead or close to it; and (2) any Iraqi reporters who asked questions like these would be dunked in acid. D’ya think?

“IT’S NO FUN being called Saddam Hussein these days.” Nope.

RED AMERICA: More Knoxville roadside signs supporting the troops, in terms that would probably induce apoplexy at the BBC. There’s lots of god-talk in these signs, with “God Bless Our Troops” and similar variations being quite common.

You see this stuff at a lot of businesses, mostly small businesses. The “United We Stand” flag decals (where do those come from, anyway?) are very common, too, as are flags on cars, both the decals and window-flags.

Back after 9/11 there was a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about where people were flying flags and where they allegedly weren’t. I haven’t seen a whole lot on that lately, but it seems to me that the flags mostly haven’t come down, and I”ll bet there are just as many in a lot of “blue” states. I suspect that this really bugs the Nicholas De Genovas of the world, but I have to say that doesn’t bother me much.

AMIR TAHERI HAS SOME THOUGHTS ON RECONSTRUCTING IRAQ. You should read them.

VIRGINIA POSTREL has a new blog URL, and a new design with permalinks. (They’re labeled “printer friendly,” though, which may confuse some readers. Well, not now!)

UPDATE: Baseball Musings has moved, too. Update your bookmarks. I’ll update my blogroll. Soon.

THE FOG OF SARS: Blogging on the SARS outbreak is a bit like blogging on the progress of the war. You know that something is going on, but you’re pretty sure you aren’t getting the whole story, or even a very representative slice.

That said, this graph of cases and deaths is interesting. The number of cases continues to climb, but not the number of deaths. I think that means one of the following: (1) The outbreak started, or at least was first noticed, in an unusually vulnerable population; or (2) the virus is becoming less deadly; or (3) the reporting is wrong, and the number of deaths is actually greater now, or the number of cases was actually greater earlier. Which is it? Beats me.

HEY — thanks to all the people who hit the PayPal and Amazon Honors buttons over the weekend. I appreciate it.

BRITISH PUBLIC OPINION has shifted in favor of the war, and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is whining about the reception she got on the Question Time program:

As I walked in, people in the front rows were already hissing and hooting to undermine me. Geoff Hoon got massive applause immediately afterwards. Obviously delighted, he looked 10 years younger suddenly. . . .

Now I think Question Time has become much better since it started to allow more assertive challenges from audience members – the old reverence has gone and an excellent thing too. Panellists should be able to deal with the cut and thrust of hot exchanges. But when it tips over into the Jerry Springer mode the programme loses its stature. . . .

In the middle of my very first answer, a Kurdish lady launched herself at me. She says she is a victim of terrible torture, rape, and punishment by Saddam’s inhumane forces. I had already watched her on several recent programmes. I said I was very sorry that she had suffered so much but that I was still anti-war. So she harangued, saying I was “clueless”. Her husband has emailed me to say that his wife believes “not being willing to get rid of Saddam by any means necessary makes a person a Saddam supporter”. I told her she was emotionally blackmailing me and, even though many people were outraged at this, I would say it again. Neither she nor the baying warmongers showed a flicker of pity for the dead and dying of Iraq.

As Ms. Brown shows not a “flicker of pity” for Saddam’s victims. Her comments about rudeness on Question Time are hilarious, though. Consider this story from September 14, 2001:

In the highly-charged atmosphere of the BBC studio, Phil Lader, the former US ambassador to Britain who was on the panel, appeared to fight back tears as he was shouted down while trying to tell the audience of his sadness.

Presenter David Dimbleby struggled to control the shouting as some members of the audience claimed the US was ultimately responsible for the deaths of its own nationals as well as of Britons.

I don’t recall Ms. Brown — who probably thought Lader got what he deserved — complaining then. In fact, she wrote a column approving it, and defending the BBC against critics who thought the show was cruel and anti-American. Sauce for the goose, Ms. Brown.

Like so many of the antiwar left, she’s very, very thin-skinned. They can dish it out, but they can’t take it. Well, get used to it, Ms. Brown. There’s more coming.

UPDATE: A reader points out this sentence from Ms. Brown’s Sept. 17, 2001 column linked above: “As it happens, I support any military action to get rid of the Taliban and Saddam and I want to see justice.” I wonder what changed her mind?

A BUNCH OF PEOPLE have been begging me to post the email address of Columbia professor Nicholas De Genova, who called for America’s defeat in Iraq and said that he’d like to see “a million Mogadishus.”

I don’t see the point. I doubt that a flood of hatemail will change his opinions. But if you want to express your dismay at his comments, and suggest that it reflects badly on Columbia, you might want to contact:

Lee C. Bollinger, President

email:

Personally, I rather doubt that Columbia would be as respectful of De Genova’s free speech if he had called for “a million Matthew Shepards” or “a million Emmett Tills.” Maybe I’m wrong. But I don’t think so.

(Via Blogs of War).

HEH:

“Let them try not showering for a week, sleeping out in the desert, living through sandstorms, being under fire — I don’t see these people out there. All they do is criticize.”

A soldier? Nope. An embedded reporter, complaining about “armchair generals journalists” who criticize the coverage.

MUBARAK SAYS THE WAR will create 100 bin Ladens.

Really? 100 wealthy Saudis who finance terror against the United States?

Well, that would certainly justify seizing the oil and killing a lot of rich Saudis, wouldn’t it? Something for the Sauds to keep in mind, anyway.

THEY’RE NOT FOR PEACE, THEY’RE JUST ON THE OTHER SIDE:

Led by Muslims, Paris peace rally again turns anti-Israeli

But French Arab teenagers from the poor suburbs chanted slogans pledging war and martyrdom in the name of both Palestinians and Iraqis and against Israel. ‘‘We are all Palestinians, we are all Iraqis, we are all kamikazes!’’ chanted one group, no older than 14 or 15, from the suburb of Garges-les-Gonesse. Others chanted: ‘‘We are all martyrs! Allahu Akbar! God is more powerful than the United States.’’

Both boys and girls wore the Palestinian scarf known as the kaffiyeh. One Moroccan-born man stepped on an image of the Israeli flag. Another French Arab pointed to a group of protesters from a Jewish student association and said: ‘‘They are targets. They are not welcome here, because of what they did to our Palestinian brothers.’’

I’d say “anti-Israel” is putting a pretty generous spin on it.

NICK DENTON WRITES: Don’t take Baghdad — just partition Iraq. Sure, the Turks and the Saudis and the Iranians won’t like it — but that’s not a bug, it’s a feature!

I don’t actually favor Nick’s approach. But it does illustrate an important point: Saddam has Baghdad, but we’ve got all the parts of Iraq that we care about already — all the places that have oil, or from which he can threaten surrounding countries with missiles, etc. What’s more, every day we’ve got more soldiers and more materiel in place, and he’s got fewer soldiers and less materiel. Saddam thinks that time’s on his side, but it’s not.

IT’S NOT A WAR, IT’S A HOSTAGE CRISIS: And among the hostages are not only the entire Iraqi civilian population, but the Iraqi army.

CAROL JOHNSON writes that Steven Den Beste isn’t critical enough of Amnesty International.

PETER ARNETT, under heavy criticism for giving an aid-and-comfort interview to Iraqi television, has been canned by NBC.

I got a lot of emails on this yesterday, and I didn’t post on it because I didn’t think it was really news. Arnett has been desperate to rejuvenate his career since the “Tailwind” debacle, and he’s always been too chummy with the Iraqi government. In a way, this, or something like it, was inevitable. The big “news” part is that this wasn’t as obvious to NBC and Explorer as it was to, well, everyone else.